frame²

I'm really bad when it comes to movies. I haven't seen a lot of Kubrick's stuff and evident by the title of the post, I JUST NOW saw the Godfather movies. I know that Godfather II is considered not only the greatest sequel to ever be made... but the greatest film period. It's always up there on the list as either #1 or #2 (next to Citizen Kane).

Why?

What was so great about Godfather II? The first one was a lot stronger for me. It had a consistent storyline where you have a progression of the story that went along steadily. The only thing I liked about the second one was going back to how Vito became successful and became who he was, and how. They should've cut out about 20 minutes of filler stuff from the first movie and inserted Vito's backstory... and you'd have the perfect Godfather movie!

I can understand Vito's rising from an orphan to being Don Corleone is supposed to run parallel to Michael's rise to power, but it just didn't work.

As an overall film it was great to watch, simply because as mentioned before, I love movies that tell stories in a biographical style. But as a film overall I just didn't see what the big deal was with Godfather II. If you look at the two together, it's great. So as much as everyone flamed poor Mr. Vincent Canby, from the New York times, I totally agree with him:

It's a second movie made largely out of the bits and pieces of Mr. Puzo's novel that didn't fit into the first. It's a Frankenstein's monster stitched together from leftover parts. It talks. It moves in fits and starts but it has no mind of its own. -Rotten Tomatoes